South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

State Legislature

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Term Limits and Taxes

l3wis 6Comments

The Argus Leader had a pair of great letters to the editor today.

The first one was slamming a regular neo-con who spews about the benefits of taxcuts;

I grew up in a South Dakota community that had WPA or PWA stamped on everything from schools to sidewalks. My quality of life to this day (62 years) has been impacted more by the New Deal and the Great Society than all other presidents and eras combined.

Couldn’t agree more. Things were built better back then to.

The second letter is about the arrogance of our state leaders and their continued attempt to overturn term limits that the voters have told them twice that we want to keep them as is;

South Dakota state legislators simply don’t understand. Last year they placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot to repeal term limits. The measure fell flat with more than 76 percent of voters casting their votes against the effort to repeal the state’s current term limits law.

I think all legislators need to take an IQ test in South Dakota before they are allowed to run for office. I think it would eliminate the Gordon Howie’s of the legislature.

State Legislature

Legislative updates – Whadda you think?

l3wis 10Comments

The axed up, chopped up, okay to smoke in Deadwood and cigar bars smoking ban bill makes it to the Senate.

The bill, HB1240, passed 43-27 and now goes back to the Senate, which earlier defeated a different version of the bill by one vote.

I think this bill will either fail in the Senate or be veto’d by Rounds. What do you think?

The elimination of the Food Tax will go to a vote today, I hope it passes, but I have a feeling too many Republicans will block it and it won’t even make it to the Governor’s desk. The bill is very simple, it removes the food on most grocery items and replaces the lost revenue with a .5% increase on everything else. What do you think?

HB1188 – a bill which dramatically impacts citizens’ ability to bring about state constitutional change by petitioning for a statewide vote has narrowly passed the House YEAS 39, NAYS 27, has been heard once in the Senate and is up before Senate State Affairs on Wednesday.

 

I think this bill will pass and be signed. If there is one thing our legislators hate more than anything is having citizens the right to petition. Every year they pass more laws limiting petition drives. They hate it when they are proven wrong about legislation, time and time again. What do you think?

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When you have an 85 year old man telling SD legislators that they need to think more ‘creatively’ Yah, know you have a problem in Pierre

l3wis 2Comments

State Legislators are considering changing the state bird to reflect how we govern here

My favorite old school liberal, Clark Butler wrote a great letter about using fiscal common sense. He provides a laundry list of great ideas, the following is something I have suggested for a long time;

Raise the tax on luxury and other items so everyone pays the same as those buying food and other necessities. Be careful when going the easy route by overtaxing gambling, tobacco, booze, gas, etc. This can backfire. You only can get so much juice from one lemon no matter how hard you squeeze it.

State Legislature

HB 1188; Another legislative assault on citizen’s right to petition their government

l3wis 0Comments

Pretty soon this is how we will petition local government

 

HB 1188: FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to require that five percent of the qualified electors in one-half of the counties sign initiative and referendum petitions.
Presented by:    Representative Noel Hamiel (Aurora & Davison counties)
Proponents:    Yvonne Taylor, SD Municipal League (If citizens keep trying to protect their land and homes, how will cities ever grow?)
        Thomas Barnett Jr.,SD State Bar 
        Al Kurtenbach, SDSU Growth Partners (Whose growth?  Probably not those troublemaker citizens who want to stop oil processing plants and such.)
        Steve Willard, SD Broadcasters Association
        Bob Wilcox, SD Association of County Commissioners (Remember how county commissioners have foolishly called confined animal feeding operations, coal power plants, and    

                                oil refineries “economic development?”)
        Michael Held, SD Farm Bureau (‘Nuff said.)

  The bill passed the House:

        Yeas 39, Nays 27, Excused 4, Absent 0
     Yeas: Bolin; Boomgarden; Brunner; Carson; Cronin; Deadrick; Dreyer; Faehn; Gosch; Greenfield; Hamiel; Hoffman; Hunt; Jensen; Juhnke; Kirkeby; Kopp; Lederman; Lust; McLaughlin; Moser; Noem; Novstrup (David); Olson (Betty); Olson (Ryan); Peters; Pitts; Rausch; Romkema; Schlekeway; Sly; Solum; Steele; Turbiville; Van Gerpen; Vanneman; Verchio; Wink; Speaker Rave
     Nays:  Blake; Burg; Curd; Cutler; Elliott; Engels; Fargen; Feickert; Feinstein; Frerichs; Gibson; Hunhoff (Bernie); Kirschman; Lange; Lucas; Nygaard; Putnam; Rounds; Russell; Schrempp; Solberg; Sorenson; Street; Thompson; Tidemann; Vanderlinde; Wismer
     Excused: Dennert; Iron Cloud III; Killer; Krebs

economy Rounds South Dakotans State Funding State Legislature

No time for Doddlers

l3wis 2Comments

Ever get in line behind someone at the bank or fast-food counter who doesn’t know what they want? Governor Rounds is the biggest offender;

While many states have made their lists of “ready-to-go” projects available for public review, others have resisted.

Only a fraction of the projects will receive money and watchdog groups say some state officials fear angering constituents if a project appears on a wish list and gets scratched.

So we might be $85 million short in tax revenue this year, and you have no clue where we could spend the money? As Archie Bunker would say, “GEEEEEEEEEEZ”

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